


Take Me Home Tonight

by HotCrossPigeon



Series: Hurt!Aziraphale Stories [7]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Affectionate Insults, Aziraphale Can’t Drive, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale Whump (Good Omens), Bickering, Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley Whump (Good Omens), Fluff and Humor, Happy Ending, Head Injury, Humor, Humour, Hurt Aziraphale (Good Omens), Hurt Crowley, Hurt Crowley (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), M/M, Old Married Couple, Sentient Bentley (Good Omens), The Poor Bentley, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:54:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23201275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HotCrossPigeon/pseuds/HotCrossPigeon
Summary: Crowley needs a bit of help after a summoning goes wrong and he’s left hurt and stranded.Aziraphale has his own problems, and is miffed to say the least to have to come to the demon’s rescue.The Bentley is the only one with any sense. Though, even she’s got her metaphorical hands full, having to deal with an angel who hasn’t the foggiest how to drive.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Hurt!Aziraphale Stories [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1497989
Comments: 98
Kudos: 272





	1. Crowley’s Bad Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I spent my birthday inside with a nice cup of tea, writing this :) hope it brings you comfort.

One minute, Crowley was in his flat, having just woken up from a bit of a snooze on one of the walls in his bedroom. He had blearily meandered his way to the kitchen in search of coffee, all the while wondering when it would be appropriate to bother Aziraphale with some artisan cheese and bread and weird little chilli oils that he’d bought down the market yesterday -

\- and the next thing he knew, he was crackling all over with wiggly occult energy, the smell of burning fire and eggy brimstone snaking up his nostrils and making him sneeze, and his hair - his poor painstakingly styled hair was standing on end with demonic static, and no matter how hard he patted it, it refused to cooperate.

All right, he probably should’ve been more concerned with zapping out of his kitchen and into the aether between worlds, but pfff. He was sleepy. And the coffee. And his _hair._

And then - _plop!_

The demon was suddenly and unceremoniously deposited on some cold concrete, face down, and covered in little hellish flames that tickled something awful. He lifted his head, groggily, puffing a breath out to get the red fluff out of his face.

What in the -

Oh, fucking _great_. Some wanker had only gone and summoned him.

Looked like a basement. A creepy one, with an altar and candles and weird bits hanging from the ceiling, but a basement nonetheless. And he was still on Earth too, that much he could smell. 

The demon rose to his bare feet, trying to appear as menacing as possible while wearing a pair of black satin pyjamas.

Eh, he made do. He’d had plenty of practice with his plants, after all. It was all in the eyes. He could make a cactus tremble and immediately sprout a flower in penance with just one heated glare.

Crowley hadn’t actually been trapped by the summoning circle, of course. He wasn’t an amateur, ta very much. He might’ve even been able to stop it from happening if he hadn’t been half asleep at the time.

But hey, now that he was here, he might as well have a bit of fun. It’d been ages since he’d scared a bunch of meddling humans, it was always good for a laugh.

And all right, later on he might admit that he’d overdone it a tad with the whole ‘big scary demon, oh no, run for your lives’ thing. But like most of his plans, it seemed like a pretty great idea at the time, and there was no conceivable way of it coming back around to bite him on the bottom.

After easily escaping the salt circle, in a spectacularly cool fashion - he’d gotten the fangs out and everything, bit of creeping fog, talons, towering hooded figures, choral satanic hymns belting out of the shadows, honestly, it was a work of art - it’d all gone a bit pear shaped.

It was the humans’ fault. There were five of them, in various ridiculous getup, including bleached animal skulls, elaborate headdresses and red velvet robes. They, er, had panicked. A bit. All right, a lot. Bit too much screaming for Crowley’s taste, he almost felt embarrassed on their behalf.

And somehow, in the resulting chaos, Crowley had managed to get himself conked on the head a few times, with some kind of heavy altar candlestick thing, by a trembling portly man with a deer skull strapped on his face, who was yelling _‘Aaaaaahhhhh! Oh, fuck me! It’s a real live demon!’_ and sounding rather alarmed, as if he hadn’t been the one to bloody orchestrate the whole stupid scenario. 

After that, the would-be occultists shrieked a bit more at all the blood and squishy bits, soiled themselves, and then legged it in fright. 

At least, that’s what Crowley had assumed they’d done, he was a bit preoccupied at the time.

What with having his head bashed in and everything.

And now he was stuck.

On the floor.

Dribbling a bit. 

Or, huh, could be blood, actually, now that he thought about it. What a way to go. Downstairs would laugh their bepimpled arses off about this for years, if they ever got wind of this cockup. That was the last thing he needed. 

Should try and get up - 

_Mfff._ Nghhhh. Owwwwwww. Nope. Nope, that hurt way too much. Bad idea. Fucking terrible idea.

Should probably try and magic his head back together first. Yeah. Great, fan-fucking-tastic plan, that.

Right...

Hmm. Easier said than done, mind.

Everything was swimming about the place a bit too much, and not in a calm manner, like little minnows on a coral reef or something, but like a shoal of gigantic tuna trying to swim away from a big fuck off shark. All, _whoosh!_ one way, and _whoosh!_ over the other way, and - oh bollocks, he was gonna be sick.

He coughed out Satan knows what onto the concrete under his wet lips.

Eurgh.

Anyway.

Hard to perform miracles when your head’s been caved in. That’s what he’d been trying to get across. 

Crowley felt at his skull with shaking fingers. Oof, yep. There was a significant dent. Enough to hold something in. Maybe a tea light, heh, that’d be funny, little tea light in there, heh, or... or a small snack for Aziraphale. A treat. For when he got peckish.

Holy hell, what was he even sssaying? Ssssh, never mind, didn’t matter.

 _Oi angel,_ he’d articulate, _got you a present. Put it in this small recess in my head. Clever of me, eh? Heh heh._

Oop. Okay. Don’t laugh. Ow.

Heheh. _Owwww._ Bless it.

Laughing was a big fat no, put the laughing on the nope pile with the rest of the... of the everything.

He could’ve been lying there for hours. Who knew. He didn’t. S’all good.

Probably passed out for a bit...

Ffffuck, he was going to discorporate, his brain had been smushed in, like a thumb pressed into a damp cake. He was doomed.He was gonna die here on the floor with his brain all over the place, wasn’t he? He was gonna kick the bucket right here in the floor of some satanic church basement, wasn’t he, of all the - hang on a tic.

Wasssssat.

That. That tingly thing. S’familiar.

He flicked his tongue out.

Aziraphale.

The angel was here? Oh good, he could show him his clever idea with the head and the thing, the thing, the thingymabob.

“Angel! Heyyy. Hey. Look,” Crowley grinned, pushing his finger into the soft part of his skull, “enough room for a biscuit, you reckon? Maybe not a custard cream, sss’wrong shape for that, but maybe a, wassat one, the one with the jam...? Dodgy. Jammy. Jammydodger. That one. Thassa one. Might be a bit sticky, though. Eh. Eh? Watcha think ‘ngel?”

“Good Lord,” muttered Aziraphale. He looked a little ill.

And he was wobbling about all over the place. All beige wiggly bits. 

“Siddown angel,” Crowley insisted, slapping the concrete with a hand, “you’ll fall over going all - all wibbly wobbly, like that. You been on the champers again? S’naughty of you. I like that. Sssit, go on, come on. Siddown here with old Crawley, I won’t bite.”

The angel eyed him with some concern. “My dear, I do believe you might be suffering from a concussion.”

Oh, so that’s how he wanted to play it. Never liked to admit drinking alone, the old angel. Wasn’t very angelic of him, you see. “Ssssssure, right, whateveryousssay, I got you,” Crowley tried to tap the side of his nose, conspiringly, but missed. He settled for winking one eye, and then the other, in quick succession. 

Aziraphale looked even more worried at that, and knelt next to the demon, carefully. That was good. Now he wouldn’t fall over. And could use the biscuit holder that Crowley had so graciously acquired.

“Now, don’t you go an’ get crumbs,” Crowley warned, blinking rapidly, “in my hair.”

Not that it mattered, his hair was still sticking up in a number of unholy angles thanks to the summoning. And anyway, Aziraphale was the kind of angel to gather any unfortunate crumbs in his handkerchief and dispose of them sensibly. As much as he loved clutter and old things, and his bookshop was an absolute hoarder’s mess, he always ensured things were well kept and clean. 

“I shall endeavour not to. Now kindly hold still and be quiet.”

And then his head was lifted, impossibly gently and placed in the angel’s ample lap. And holy Christ on bicycle, that was something. That was really something. Crowley turned slightly, ignoring the shooting agony behind his eyes, to bury his nose in the nearest bit of angel he could reach. Mmmm. Velvety.

That was nice.

He let the angel feel him up a bit. Although, it was mostly around the head area, more’s the pity, and Aziraphale was being very gentle about it. Crowley’s thoughts slowly come back together, like threads in a blanket. He felt a bit like he was being knitted back together by a competent grandmother with a ball of tangled wool. Just being in the vague proximity of Aziraphale left him feeling better. Because he was a soppy git like that.

The angel was probably angry with him, mind, gonna go off on one about the demon not thinking things through, or taking stupid risks, or that he should be more careful, or some such bollocks. 

“Oh. Oh, _Crowley_ ,” murmured Aziraphale.

And to be honest, that was much worse than being shouted at.

There was blood all over the place. A bit of demonic black goo was mixed in there too, for good measure. Looked worse than it was, otherwise he’d be discorporated by now, right? Aziraphale hadn’t even made any jokes about the demon still being alive without a brain. That was pretty telling. He could be a right bastard sometimes.

“Fffff. Don’t make a big deal out of it,” Crowley grumbled. “Just y’know, do me a bit of magic, be better in no time.”

“Right. Right, yes.” Aziraphale didn’t look too enthused by the idea. His forehead was puckered in a worried frown that spoke of Archangels lurking about, or big imminent floods on the horizon, it didn’t bode well. “Ah,” he breathed, “are you sure that you can’t manage it yourself?”

Crowley stared at him, incredulously. “Oh, oh yeah, I can, ‘course I can, thing is, I _like_ lying around with my brain smushed in, bleeding everywhere, s’my fucking _favourite!_ Angel, what the bloody _hell_ -!”

“All right, yes, there’s no need to shout -” 

“What in the name of Sssssatan’s buggering bollocksss did you think I’ve been trying to do?!”

“Yes, I - I realise that you might be having some difficulty in healing yourself, what with the, ah -”

“Brain bits oozing out everywhere?”

“Yes. That. Of course I’ll help, with all the... oozing.” He grimaced, “Just a moment.”

The angel snapped his fingers. His eyes were suspiciously wet and his face suddenly creased in pain. Crowley didn’t think he looked that bad. Not enough to warrant the angel looking like that, anyway.

The blood around them disappeared and Crowley wobbled his head back and forth, blearily.

“Did it work?” He slurred, “Dun feel’ny better.”

“I’m, ah, doing it in increments,” explained Aziraphale, wetly, in that weird strangled way that meant he was rather upset about something. Maybe they’d discontinued his favourite dessert at a local restaurant, or one of waistcoat buttons had pinged free unexpectedly and been lost under a bookshelf, “less likely to cause a ruckus Upstairs that way.” He cleared his throat, but it didn’t help, “Oh, do try not to move around too much, there’s a good fellow. You’re making a frightful mess.”

Crowley squinted at him. 

Aziraphale’s lower lip was wobbling.

Oh, fuck.

“Angel,” he said in a voice so quiet that it was almost lost between them, “Don’t do that. Hey. M’not worth blubbering over.”

He only said it quietly because it hurt his head to speak any louder. Shut up.

The angel sniffed, procured a handkerchief from his breast pocket and blew his nose with it.

“I’m not blubbering because of you,” insisted Aziraphale, with a tear leaking blatantly from the corner of his grey eye now, it caught in the dimple of his mouth. Crowley was struck with the sudden urge to lick it, before the angel sponged it up with the lacy material. “Don’t be absurd. Why would I cry over you? I wouldn’t, obviously.”

“Right. Yeah. So. What’re you crying about then?”

“... My waistcoat,” answered the angel, after a small measure of time, rubbing absently at his chest, “you’ve absolutely ruined my poor waistcoat. I’ve kept it for centuries, and I realise the velveteen has become a little worn over the years, but it only added to its timeless charm, I thought, and now thanks to you it’s positively sodden with God only knows what!”

Crowley squinted at the drenched golden fabric with one eye. Yep, that was buggered. Saturated with demon ooze, there was no getting rid of that. “Mn, yeah,” he said, “so it is. Whoopsie.”

Aziraphale swiped at his eyes angrily, “I’ll never manage to get the stain out! Velvet is notoriously difficult to clean. And you’ve completely soaked it through.” His hands trembled. “That’s just like you isn’t it? Making me come all the way out here to retrieve you - in the middle of the night, I might add, and without a moment’s notice, and then - _then_ \- having the audacity to get your wretched bodily fluids all over my favourite waistcoat. That’s gratitude for you!” 

“Bodily fluids,” whispered Crowley with a lazy grin, “hehe.”

“You are _impossible_.”

“Nah. Not imposs’ble, implaus’ble maybe.”

“Good Heavens,” muttered Aziraphale, “What on earth does that even mean?”

“Dunno. Brain’s all,” he flapped his hand, “bloopy. Blood loss, I think. Brain loss too. See that pink bit over there, think thassa bit of it.”

Aziraphale huffed, and pressed careful fingers over the throbbing part of the demon’s head. There was the sudden whiff of magic, stark and electrical, like a crackle of lightning.

 _Nghhh!_ Christ, that _stung_. But, kind of in a good way. A startle of sharp bright pain, but then a rush of soothing endorphins.

Kinda like getting slapped on the arse. 

Eh. Woah. Wait. Forget he thought that. 

He was still dizzy enough not to even think about using his own demonic powers, but Aziraphale seemed to have healed the worst of it.

There were a few moments in which the angel was oddly quiet, faffing about around his head, and breathing a bit funny, probably still upset about his bloody waistcoat, he could get like that sometimes. Crowley thought for a bit, and then drawled out, “M’sorry,” and then clarified it with, “‘bout your waistcoat.”

Aziraphale came back into view, having completed whatever he’d been doing to the top of Crowley’s poor abused skull. His fingers had trailed down now, to the temples, as if he were checking for further injury. Crowley wasn’t about to complain about the petting. It was nice.

Aziraphale treated the demon to an unamused purse of his lips and a slow deliberate blink of his eyes at the halfhearted apology, because yeah, okay, it was a crock of shit, “No, you’re not.” He insisted, shrewdly.

“No,” agreed Crowley, “I’m not. Always hated that bloody thing.”

“I know, it’s one of the reasons that it remained my favourite for so long.” The angel tutted, “I bet you were waiting for a moment like this in which to ruin it. Out of spite.”

Crowley pouted a bit, then relented. Because, yes. He had. “Mn. Yeah. Soundsss like me. But,” he said with a wavering finger pointed in the angel’s face, “how about this? Could be a blessing in disguise, eh? You could use this opp’rtunity to turn over a new leaf. Start wearing t-shirt’s... or something.” 

Aziraphale’s face immediately recoiled from him at such a suggestion, his eyes flashing with barely concealed hurt, “I know you’ve never appreciated my sense of fashion, but you usually have more sense than to bring attention to it. You’re really being quite unkind.”

Crowley sniffed, “S’not your fashion sense I’ve gotta problem with.”

“Oh, really?” snapped the angel, eyes darting away and lips pulled down in annoyance.

“Yeah, it’s all that bloody material, I don’t like. Too much covering up, if you ask me.”

Aziraphale huffed. “I didn’t.”

“Well, if you did, that’s what I’d say.” He squinted at the waistcoat, and lamented, “Not enough angel tummy.”

Aziraphale froze, his fingers stilling their gentle fretting at the sides of Crowley’s head. They slipped a little, until he was cupping the demon’s ears, palms dangerously close to the cheeks. “I... I’m sorry, what was that?”

“Your sssstupid waistcoat, it hides all the, y’know, the lovely soft bits,” Crowley explained, reasonably, “that sort of thing should be illegal, s’why I never liked it.”

The faintest blush dusted the angel’s cheeks, and he had stopped breathing.

And then, suddenly, Crowley’s brain caught up with his tongue. 

The demon snapped his mouth shut, then opened it again in a rush, and blurted, “Shit, didn’t mean to say that - listen, forget that last part. Just forget I mentioned it. Easily done! I’m delirious, clearly. Dunno what I’m saying. Mad as a box of frogs, me. Completely loopy! Oh, look - look at that -” he gestured vaguely over the shocked angel’s shoulder, “is that a bunch of mythological creatures dancing around? I think the blood loss has, uh, done stuff. To my brain. Woo. Best not listen to a word I say, angel. I’m not making any sense.”

Aziraphale regarded him for a long moment with deep blue eyes that saw everything, then he licked his bottom lip with a wet pink tongue, and said, “Quite.” 

And he didn’t sound convinced in the slightest, the bastard.

Crowley squeezed his eyes shut and resisted the urge to sink into the fiery bowels of Hell and just be done with it.

Then those warm hands left his head and moved purposefully to his shoulders.

Aziraphale was strong, Crowley always forgot just how strong the angel was. Shouldn’t really, there were plenty of examples of divine strength to choose from - one time, he’d popped round to the bookshop for an afternoon schmooze, and witnessed the angel lifting up his desk with one hand as if it weren’t solid oak and impossible to even shift a few centimetres without breaking your spine, all because he’d dropped a butterscotch sweet under there. 

Point was, you didn’t become the Guardian of the Eastern Gate for nothing, you know. Aziraphale was a Principality of Heaven, he had been a soldier, a wielder of a flaming sword. He was strength personified.

It was kinda hot, actually.

The angel picked Crowley up as if he were nothing, a flimsy old weed of a demon. And he could feel the flex of solid muscle under his legs and around the thin material on his back.

Mmff, Aziraphale was so warm. And he smelled. Absolutely fucking amazing. Crowley could just stick the cold tip of his pointy nose right in there, to the line of mother of pearl buttons beneath the angel’s chin, get a good lungful of forbidden smell. 

“Where we goin?” grumbled the demon, to distract himself from acting on his desires of huffing in the angel’s neck like it was freshly laundered bed sheets, “I can walk you know, nuffin’ wrong with my legs, you’re always so bloody dramatic.”

“Humour me,” said Aziraphale, “I would hate for you to fall over and crack your head open again, it would be terribly inconvenient.”

“I didn’t fall over, it was those sssstupid bastards, with their fucking candlestick.”

“Oh, of _course_. Colonel mustard, was it?” Aziraphale asked, because he was a bastard, “In the pantry?”

Crowley groaned aloud. “Should never have let you play that bloody game...”

The angel was frankly terrible at Cluedo. Not because he was bad at guessing whodunnit, he’d read a plethora of detective fiction in his time and was particularly fond of _Poirot_ , and as such he had a wealth of knowledge on the subject. Nope, it was because he became much too excited upon playing the part of a sleuth, and unwittingly, and joyously, shared all of his predictions with Crowley, because he just simply couldn’t contain himself.

Way too trusting. 

Crowley had wiped the floor with him.

“Mmm,” contemplated the angel, and the hum of his voice reverberated in his chest. Crowley could feel it rumble against his cheek. “I suppose you’re right,” then quieter still, “our games do so often get us into trouble, don’t they...”

What the hell did that mean..? 

And then Crowley got distracted.

‘Cause, oh. Look. The bloody Bentley was here. How in the heaven did that happen? 

And then they were alongside the gleaming black paintwork of his beloved car, her back door had creaked open of its own volition, and the demon found himself suddenly being manhandled by a warm angel into the interior, and - it was fantastic.

“Ever so sorry to spoil your upholstery,” murmured Aziraphale, his hands easing Crowley into the backseat.

“S’alright,” slurred the demon, who wanted the angel to spoil his upholstery as much as he pleased, really. Wouldn’t say no to a bit of spoiling himself. “Dunworryboutit. S’fine.”

“I wasn’t speaking to you,” answered the angel, curtly, though his hands were exceptionally gentle while they laid the demon across the smooth black leather, a warm palm cradling the underside of Crowley’s head as if he were something precious.

“Eh?” grunted Crowley, intelligently. That palm felt like the world’s softest pillow. He wondered how he ever managed to keep his head up without it.

“He’s done the same to my poor waistcoat,” continued Aziraphale, sagely, and presumably to the Bentley, of all the stupid things. “Very inconsiderate of him, but I’m sure he’ll clean you thoroughly, by hand, once he’s in a better state. In fact, I’ll see to it myself that he does.”

Crowley grumbled. So they were conspiring against him now, were they? Should have known it would happen eventually. The two sassiest beings on the planet. It would surely spell disaster. Particularly for him.

It occurred to the demon, briefly, that he may have a type.

Then his head twinged and he turned to muffle his groan into the leather seating, which tasted bloody awful against his hissing tongue, so he wiggled and fidgeted around, but couldn’t get comfortable at all, and wondered idly if he could convince the angel to come back here and cradle his head again, because now that he knew what that felt like, nothing else even compared. In fact, everything else was torture.

There was suddenly a warm coat being placed over his body and tucked neatly around the edges, and that went a long way in soothing him, not that he would ever admit as much. Crowley had the sudden urge to shuck it off out of spite. How dare the angel coddle him, when he wanted it so badly.

Aziraphale settled himself into the driver’s side with a small huff of air through his nose, swinging the door shut carefully and causing the car to rock slightly with the motion. He sat for a few moments, flexing his wrists a little as if he were about to start composing.

Crowley squinted at him in the sudden horrifying realisation that this was a very, very bad idea. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ta for reading :) be kind to yourself! Much love, I appreciate you all and hope you’re well x


	2. Crowley’s Bad Day Part 2

“Can you even drive?” Crowley demanded. Knowing full well that the angel couldn’t. That was the fucking problem. Holy buggering crap, he was getting heart palpitations just thinking about it.

Aziraphale adjusted the mirror so that he could see the demon more easily, which obviously wasn’t the point of it, and the action immediately fanned the spark of unease in Crowley’s belly until it was a full on fire. 

Nopenopenope, this was a really fucking _terrible_ idea. Only bad things could come of letting an angel, who didn’t know the proper name for a bloody bicycle, attempt to bloody drive him anywhere. Aziraphale couldn’t even operate a telephone that didn’t have a rotary dial on it, for Christ’s sake. There was no way he’d be able to master the complex beautiful machinery of the Bentley.

She was a lady who needed to be treated right. Not fumbled about with, like some - some cheap floozy.

“So sorry, my dear, what was that?” The angel murmured, distracted by fiddling with the radio, and by the looks of all the forlorn patting at his shoulder, lamenting the lack of a seatbelt.

“Angel,” Crowley insisted, urgently now, because it looked like Aziraphale might just go through with his idiotic plan, “you can’t drive. What are you even doing? You’re gonna _kill_ us!”

Aziraphale was not to be swayed. He treated the writhing, panicking demon in the backseat to a small huffed giggle. “Well, I suppose, technically speaking, I’m not in possession of a licence, no,” he said, quite merrily, “but I assure you, dear fellow, that isn’t a problem you need to worry yourself with at the moment.” 

He explained this all, calmly, and with a kind ‘oh, don’t trouble yourself’ sort of smile, which rubbed Crowley up the wrong way entirely.

“It bloody well _is_ a problem I need to worry about!” The demon shrieked, “I’ll not have you crashing my car, angel!”

“I wasn’t planning on crashing her, thank you.” Aziraphale’s blue eyes were glaring at him from the mirror, and though he couldn’t see them from this angle, he had no doubt that the angel’s lips were pursed in thinly veiled annoyance. “I rather think we are much safer in my hands than yours, at the moment.”

They were going to die.

They were going to fucking _die._

The Bentley started her engine without any help, Crowley didn’t know where her keys had gone but it looked like that didn’t matter.

She was betraying him, pandering to the desires of a bumbling, inexperienced, smug bastard of an angel, who was probably going to steer them straight into a lamppost with a ‘whoopsiedaisy how clumsy of me’ - it was disgusting, is what it was. Stupid car. You’d never catch Crowley doing anything like that. 

Shut up, he wouldn’t do that. Just shut it, all right. 

The Bentley crept away from the curb of the pavement.

Agonisingly.

Slowly.

Aziraphale’s hands immediately went up to the steering wheel, at the guideline position of ten to two and they steadfastly stayed there. He sat like he had a pole shoved up his arse.

But... he was doing it. Holy hell, Aziraphale was _driving_ \- the idiot was actually driving! Hell, maybe Crowley had been wrong, maybe the angel had been subconsciously learning every time he’d sat in the car with the demon, maybe he’d actually -

Wait.

Wait a minute.

Something was wrong.

Crowley wound down the back window, gripped with a sudden urgency, and stared.

He quickly wound it back up in case the clouds got in. Which was a good job too, because at that very moment a disoriented blackbird whacked against the glass and slowly slid down it in a mess of squawking feathers.

Jesus Christ, it was worse than he’d imagined.

“Angel,” Crowley seethed, trying very hard not to set anything on fire. “What, in the ever living _fuck_ , are you _doing?!_ ”

“Hmm?”

“We’re not in Chitty fucking Bang Bang!” He shrieked.

The angel made a small noise of happiness from the front seat, “Oh that, oh, that really was a marvellous experience, wasn’t it -”

“No! Don’t do your ‘oh, I remember that, we had some lovely ice creams at the interval’ thing - do you even _realise_ what you’re bloody doing?! _Look!_ Look out the sodding window! Christ, I knew I should never have taken you to see that stupid musical, it’s given you ideas! Put my car down on the ground before you break her - or - or worse, start bursting into song!”

Aziraphale spared a glance out of the windshield, as if he’d only just noticed their odd floating above the ground, even though it was pretty fucking obvious at this point - a few pigeons had just spectacularly shat all over the bonnet when they’d been startled out of a tall tree by the Bentley narrowing avoiding thwacking straight into it. Not to mention the fact that the bloody back tire had just knocked off a few pots from a nearby chimney stack. 

Fuck’s _sake!_ Crowley quickly re-evaluated the way they were going to die from terrestrial to celestial. Which didn’t change much at all, actually.

The Bentley herself had started to honk loudly at anything and everything, flashing her lights into the open air, and enjoying her new found ‘flight mode’ immensely. She was a menace, both on land and in the sky. Basically, she lived to terrorise anything that dared get in her way. The demon was almost proud.

“Oh, oh goodness, yes!” Aziraphale exclaimed, with the air of someone who had accidentally sat on their own flaming sword. “Of course, silly me.”

Crowley whacked his head on the ceiling from the sudden stomach-clenching drop to the middle of the road. The tyres bounced as they hit the ground, and Crowley’s poor head suffered another bonk to the roof in the aftermath.

“Oof!” He scowled, rubbing at his cranium.

“Dreadfully sorry about that,” said Aziraphale, looking wholly unconcerned, “the last time I was utilising a similar mode of transport - a ‘motor scooter’, I believe it was called - it required a little angelic interference to get going. I’m afraid I might have gotten a tad carried away...”

No one. Interfered. Angelically. With Crowley’s Bentley. 

And alright, so Aziraphale had plonked a tartan bike rack on the back of her, once upon a time, and he’d allowed it, yeah, but this - taking her for a bloody joyride through the sky and risking collisions with unfortunate birds and low flying planes - this was a step too far.

“Right, that’s _it!_ Get outta the way!” shouted the demon, as he attempted to hook one uncooperative leg over into the front passenger seat. “Budge over, angel!”

Aziraphale swatted him with the flat of his palm, and then immediately returned his hands to the steering wheel, “Absolutely not!”

“It’s _my_ car!”

“And I managed to get here with both of us intact, didn’t I? Have a little faith in me, won’t you? Just lie back down. _Please._ You’ll do yourself a mischief, and quite honestly, I haven’t the wherewithal nor the inclination to heal you again.”

Crowley hissed at him, like a scorned cat. He settled for poking his legs through the gap above the front seats, obnoxiously. His bare scaled feet pointed up in the air next to Aziraphale’s disapproving face. He wiggled his toes in spite.

The angel turned to fix him with a look so furious that the devil himself might have offered up an apology.

Of course, that didn’t mean that Crowley would. He was much too stubborn for that. And the angel was being stupid anyway.

“I’ll not,” Aziraphale said, quietly, and admittedly, a little terrifyingly, “be intimidated by you, you ungrateful creature. Lie back down this instant.” 

He didn’t add ‘or I’ll make you’, because it was very much implied with the flash of heavenly steel in his grey eyes and the righteousness inherent in his straight backed, no-nonsense posture.

Crowley paid it not one jot of notice, because he wouldn’t mind the angel making him lie down in the backseat at all actually, that sounded fucking sublime. Might even lead to a bit of a wrestle. And, well.

There was a reason he’d purchased that statue back at his flat, you know.

“Don’t wanna. I can’t get comfy, I don’t like it, s’all wrong back here - no arse grooves in the seat or anything and you can’t make me lie down, or I’ll get carsick, and you really don’t wanna see a demon projectile vomit, believe me.” Crowley groused.

The angel raised a pointed eyebrow in the mirror. “I’ve already seen you projectile vomit,” he huffed, “though I don’t suppose you remember, you were in quite a sorry state of affairs. It was the absinthe. I had to put you on angelic dialysis.”

Crowley did remember. But he didn’t want to. There was only so much disappointed Aziraphale face he could take.

“But yes indeed, you’re right, I’ll certainly want to avoid a repeat of _that_ , if at all possible. The smell alone was enough, but it was so corrosive that it ate through my good brogues. I still haven’t gotten over the loss...”

Crowley stuck two fingers up, poked his tongue out and blew a very loud and obscene raspberry, because bugger if he was going to apologise. He never asked for help.

“Oh, very mature,” tutted the angel, ignoring the flatulent sound in favour of turning back to the windscreen to gaze out of it like a forlorn heroine waiting for her love to return overseas - in other words, not paying the damnedest bit of attention to his surroundings, if the trees, pedestrians, and other cars jumping out of the way of the pootling Bentley, were anything to go by.

Aziraphale was going _way_ under the speed limit, naturally, but his steering was atrocious.

“I suppose it wouldn’t do much harm if you were to sit upright, but I’ll ask you to kindly stop distracting me. You are _not_ allowed in the front, and that’s my final word on the matter.”

Crowley retrieved his legs and sat upright on the backseat, leaning over his knees to better see the front section of the car, so that he could moan about it. He waggled a hand about.

“You’re not even doing it right,” whined the demon, petulantly. “Look! She’s not even in gear!” He pointed at the gearstick which looked to be stuck in neutral, and hadn’t been touched since they started the journey.

“Oh,” said Aziraphale, with a tone of mild interest, “is that what that phallic object is? I had wondered about its purpose, but didn’t think it polite to ask.”

“Angel, for the love of - what the hell did you think it was?! No, no don’t answer that, I don’t think I could survive it - and what’s this bollocks you’ve got on?”

“The radio,” said the angel, primly. Keeping his hands firmly on the steering wheel and not moving them, or the wheel, in the slightest, despite the fact that they were now on a roundabout.

Crowley scrunched his face up, recognising the telltale lilt of voices, “Is that - no, angel. No. Turn it off.”

“It’s just the tail end, dear. It’ll be over soon, and besides, it’s so lovely to listen to the farmers’ tales, they have such delightful mishaps! It’s like a play,” he explained, delightedly, “only, you listen to it over the radio waves. It’s very good.”

“I know what the bloody _Archers_ is!” Crowley huffed, grumpily, “And you know it’s a soap, right? Shouldn’t you turn your angelic nose up at that sort of thing - I mean, it’s hardly highbrow entertainment, is it?”

“Oh, please. I’m not a snob, Crowley.”

“You bloody well are.”

“Having _standards_ does not make one a snob.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Well, it hardly matters what you think, because I am currently the one in charge of the car, therefore I get to choose what we listen to. Besides, you might enjoy it if you give it a chance. I find that this offers a fascinating insight on topical events,” sniffed Aziraphale, “It’s culture.”

“It’s a load of old shit, is what it is.”

“Crowley, how _dare_ you,” the angel was incensed, and if he were to ever let his hands leave the safety of the wheel he might have put a hand over his mouth in pure shock and outrage. “It’s _Radio Four!_ ”

“Shit,” reiterated the demon, petulantly, even though, on occasion, Crowley didn’t actually mind it.

However, he wasn’t feeling particularly charitable at the moment, for obvious reasons, and wasn’t in the mood for anything at all really, let alone the angel sitting there making ridiculous pum-ba-pum-ba-pum-pum-pum! noises along to the uplifting theme tune and looking to be enjoying himself immensely. When, by all rights, he ought to be just as miserable as Crowley was. Maybe even more so.

“Shitty shit ssshit. You should’ve left me there to die if you’re just gonna torture me like this, angel! Put something else on for Christ’s sake, I think my ears are bleeding.”

“Honestly,” tutted the angel, “I think I preferred it when you were unconsc-”

A stuttered breath.

His right hand left the wheel, all of a sudden.

Crowley shot upright in alarm, sticking his head through the gap above the two front seats. Aziraphale had his manicured hand clenched tightly in the fabric of his shirt, over his chest and his eyes were squeezed shut.

“What is it?” The demon squeaked, suddenly petrified, “What’s wrong? Fuck! Are you having a heart attack?!”

The angel’s face was white, pained.

Fuck, fuckety _fuck -!_

Crowley tried to clamber into the front seat but his legs were like two bendy straws and the world went upside down and his nose found carpet.

“Are you dying?!” The demon screeched, from somewhere in the footwell, he put one clawed hand on the back of the chair in front and heaved himself upright again. “Are you - ARE YOU DYING?!” He bellowed again, louder, just in case the angel missed it the first time. “WHAT - WHO - AH! WHAT DO I DO?!”

“Just...” Aziraphale sucked in a wobbly breath, and opened one eye, “Hush, will you...? Please, give me... one moment...”

“Christ, oh, fuck, you’re not, are you? Having a heart attack, I mean? ‘Cause I don’t know how to deal with one of those, I’ve only ever seen them on the telly, or caused them, accidentally, I swear, completely by accident - I didn’t even know we could get them - you’re not actually dying, are you?”

“Don’t be... silly.”

“I’m not being silly! You’re the one clutching at your chest dramatically!”

“It’s, ah, just a twinge,” the angel gasped, wetly, “ahh.”

The hand loosened its death grip, but didn’t return to its customary position on the steering wheel, just fisted loosely on his chest for a long moment.

Crowley stared at it, with wide eyes.

“Mmm,” Aziraphale murmured, with a small wince. Then his wide palm flattened out, and began to rub at the place over where a human heart probably would have been, if the angel had one. “There, now. See?” Jesus H. Christ, he sounded awful, breathy and just... awful. A false brightness ringing tinny as a bell in his voice. “There, all better.”

Crowley couldn’t believe the bloody nerve of him. All better, his demonic arse!

“Just a... a spot of indigestion,” lied the angel, blatantly. He was a - a lying _liar_ , that’s what he was, and they both knew it, and Crowley could hear his own demonic teeth grinding inside his head with barely concealed fury as the idiot continued, “Nothing to worry about. I shouldn’t have had that extra croissant this morning! Oh my dear, I’m terribly sorry for alarming you.”

What a load of old _bollocks_. And look at that - the angel’s hand that was still gripped on the wheel was trembling now, too. Did Aziraphale think he was stupid? That he couldn’t see what was going on?

Crowley’s voice was low and dangerous.

“Stop the car.”

Aziraphale scoffed a little, and it only made Crowley angrier. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Stop. The. Car.”

“No, my dear. I don’t think I will, thank you. We’ve still quite a while to go yet before we reach our destination, and there’s no need to delay our journey any further.”

“I’m not asking,” Crowley growled, “I’m telling. Pull over.”

“No.”

“Stop the car, angel. _Stop this bloody car, right now!_ STOP THIS CAR!” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please stay safe and look after yourselves <3  
> Your kind words mean the world to me :)


End file.
